Johanna Hedva
is the author of the novel On Hell (Sator Press, 2018). Their fiction, essays, and poems have appeared in Asian American Literary Review, Black Warrior Review, Entropy, Mask Magazine, 3:AM, and elsewhere. Their work has been shown at Machine Project, Human Resources LA, the LA Architecture and Design Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art on the Moon.

To Those Mad, Sick, Crip Selves

With Johanna Hedva

The following presentation and discussion were recorded at To Those Mad, Sick, Crip Selves on March 8, 2018. Johanna Hedva read excerpts from their novella, On Hell, and their epistolary essay, “Letter to A Young Doctor,” published in Risk Pool, issue 24 of Triple Canopy. This was followed by a conversation with Lara Mimosa Montes, senior editor at Triple Canopy, during which they discussed 1980s body horror, the prison-industrial complex, and internalized ableism. It should be noted that, during the conversation, the word “crippling” was used inappropriately.

Can we imagine a doctor-patient relationship based on collaboration and trust, on a more holistic view of the patient? How can we conceive of the care we give and receive from others as being enmeshed with our political futures? In their recently published epistolary essay, “Letter to a Young Doctor,” Johanna Hedva reminds us of the importance of “finding a way toward healing—which is to say finding the way that is healing—but also toward how political resistance might work, toward justice.”

For To Those Mad, Sick, Crip Selves, Hedva will read excerpts from “Letter to A Young Doctor,” which is part of This Earth Our Hospital, a book in progress that consists of a series of essays and performances meditating on the politics of sickness, disability, and healing. They will also read from their forthcoming novella, On Hell, which envisions the insurrectionary potential of the crip, queer, sick body. The reading will be followed by a discussion moderated by Triple Canopy senior editor Lara Mimosa Montes.

To Those Mad, Sick, Crip Selves is part of Risk Pool, an issue that asks: how are sickness and wellness defined, and by whom? What are the effects of these definitions, these acts of naming and describing?

company is fully accessible to wheelchair users with ramp access to the venue on 13th Ave NE. Free street parking is available off 13th Ave NE and 4th St. ASL interpretation and shuttle service are both available, but please write info@fd13residency.org at least 3 days in advance of the event so we can make every effort possible to accommodate you.

Participants

Johanna Hedva
is the author of the novel On Hell (Sator Press, 2018). Their fiction, essays, and poems have appeared in Asian American Literary Review, Black Warrior Review, Entropy, Mask Magazine, 3:AM, and elsewhere. Their work has been shown at Machine Project, Human Resources LA, the LA Architecture and Design Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art on the Moon.